Press Releases Archive
23.04.2015
2015 Lucas Prize for Quranic scholar Angelika Neuwirth
University of Tübingen honors scientific research into the history of the Quran; Junior Researcher’s Prize for medieval historian
The Faculty of Protestant Theology will award this year’s Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize to Angelika Neuwirth, professor of Quranic Studies at the Freie Universität in Berlin, for her research into the Quran and its interpretations. In particular, she is the director of Corpus Coranicum, a project investigating the Quran in the context of its historical background using documents such as manuscripts and information derived from archaeological excavations. Last year, the Coranicum project discovered that a rare Quran manuscript in the Tübingen University Library dated to the very early Islamic period, just decades after the death of the Prophet Mohammed.
The Prize of €50,000 is awarded annually in recognition of outstanding achievement in the fields of Theology, History or Philosophy, focusing on individuals whose work promotes tolerance among nations and religions.
Angelika Neuwirth (born in 1943) studied Islamic Studies, Semantics and Classical Philology in Berlin, Tehran, Göttingen, Jerusalem and Munich. Between 1994 and 1999 she was the director of the German Institute of Oriental Studies in Beirut and Istanbul before her appointment in Berlin. She also conducts research into modern Arabic literature in the Eastern Mediterranean, especially Palestinian poetry and prose related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Lucas Junior Researcher’s Prize goes to historian Dr. Christian Heinemeyer for his 2014 PhD thesis, entitled “Between empire and religion in the late Middle Ages. Governance and political networks of Emperor Friedrich III and the Elector Albrecht Achilles von Brandenburg.”
Both awards will be made on 12 Mai 2015.
The Leopold Lucas Prize honors the memory of the Jewish rabbi and scholar Dr. Leopold Lucas, murdered at Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943. The Prize was endowed by his son, Franz D. Lucas, in 1972. It is awarded annually by the University of Tübingen’s Faculty of Protestant Theology.
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kampmann, Prof. Dr. Friedrich Hermanni,
Prof. Dr. Christof Landmesser
Faculty of Protestant Theology
University of Tübingen
Phone +49 7071 29-72538
<link mail ein fenster zum versenden der>ev.theologie[at]uni-tuebingen.de